CFP: Chaucer and His Books: From Manuscript to Print (9/15/06; Kalamazoo, 5/11/07-5/14/07)

Call for Paper Abstracts for International Congress on Medieval Studiesin Kalamazoo in May 2007; proposal deadline: September 15

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In the fifteenth century, Chaucer's authorial identity began to takeshape in a variety of ways. The symbolic capital associated with hisname led editors to take liberties when assigning works to the poet. Inthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Chaucer's oeuvre remained fluidand editors often placed apocryphal works alongside legitimate tales andpoems. A wide-range of works, from Lydgate's continuation of the themesof the Canterbury Tales to the polemical Plowman's Tale, becameassociated with Chaucer in the years following his death. Following theintroduction of the printing press to England, these additions toChaucer's canon often became fixed within the complex matrix of bookproduction and marketing that emerged from the maelstrom of early printculture. This panel will examine how Chaucer developed as an author andhow his role as a literary figure shaped the way he was (and is)received. We seek papers that draw on a number of disciplines includingthe history of the book, textual studies, manuscript studies, andliterary history to explore the issues of book production and trade andits role in the formation of Chaucer the author and his accepted body ofwork.

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Please email or mail cover letter (or equivalent information) andabstracts of no more than 300 words to either :